Tales from the Skiff
by Christine Morgan
Summary: Two stories in one --


Tales From the Skiff   
Christine Morgan   
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org

* * *

  
Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles are the property of Disney  
and used here without consent. Other sources of inspiration, homage,  
and outright theft occur herein, also without knowledge or permission  
of the rightful creators.  
  
Author's Note Additional: the events in this story take place before  
Broadway, Brendan, and Elektra find their way home in "The Pure and  
the Profane," a story that just wouldn't wait to be written.  
  
Special Thanks to Denis, for making a joke that I decided to take  
seriously! ; )  
  
  
#42 in an ongoing saga.  


* * *

  
OPENING:  
(music by Danny Elfman)  
Swooping camera pan toward the brass-and-glass double doors  
of a skyscraper, zeroing in on the stylized gold-painted "X" just before  
the door swings open. Quick skim over marble and mahogany foyer,  
sweep up into elevator shaft.  
Emerge into the spacious hall of a castle, skimming across  
tapestries, antiques, displays of armor and weapons, stained-glass  
windows. Onto the battlements, panning swiftly past fearsome figures in  
menacing stone poses. Dart back inside, swerve down a hallway, into a  
child's nursery.  
Zoom in on a jack-in-the-box in jolly colors. The latch flips,  
the lid pops open, and out springs a thin figure with floating white hair  
and overlarge, pointed ears.  
A maniacal laugh spirals into the upper registers, and then a  
voice chortles, "Tales from the Skiff!"  
  
* * 

* * *

  
PART ONE -- INTRODUCTION:  
Scene of a long dusty table littered with bits of pottery, thick  
gold jewelry, archaeologist's tools. A sarcophagus stands in the  
background, against the wall of a tent.  
Puck, wearing a pith helmet and khaki, blows a cloud of grit  
from a bejeweled brooch in the shape of a beetle, then grins into the  
camera.  
"Hello there, boys and girls. Hope I didn't scarab you!  
Wouldn't want to send you running home to mummy! She's so wrapped  
up in herself these days!"  
He floats into the air, hovering over the table. "Our first tale  
pushes the pyramid-ars of adventure. All's pharaoh in love and war, and  
people always get what's Tutankhamen to them! So join me for a little  
story that that I call ... Brendan Vandermere and the Temple of Doom!"  
  
* *  
  
The river was a wide ribbon of dull brown-green rippling  
between banks thick with rich mud. Canals reached from the river, long  
narrow fingers combing through the lush fields. The moon hung low  
and full and huge, painting the landscape cool silver.  
Statues lined the sides of the river, towering ancient stone  
figures on square pedestals. The moment Brendan saw them, he knew.  
"Egypt!" he said.  
He quickly identified the gods -- hawk-headed Horus, whose  
single eye was represented on the back of the dollar bill; Anubis, judge  
of the dead; sleek Bast, bare-breasted with the head of a cat; many  
more.  
"Who's that?" Elektra breathed, pointing to the statue of a  
woman with feathery wings extending from the undersides of her  
outstretched arms. "She seems almost a gargoyle!"  
"Isis," Brendan said, briefly describing the goddess' journey  
through the underworld and her efforts to restore her husband after he'd  
been torn to pieces.  
"When Goliath was sent here, he fought the Pack," Broadway  
muttered. "We better look out."  
"Mm-hmm," Brendan replied, barely listening as he read the  
heiroglyphs on the pedestals as the skiff glided smoothly by. "Where's  
the camera?"  
Elektra found it and he began taking pictures, grateful for the  
bright moon.  
"Hey, what's that?" Broadway put a hand to his fanlike ear,  
which as far as Brendan was concerned, was like holding a pair of  
binoculars up in front of the Hubble telescope.  
_pop-pop-pop-pop!  
_ Next came a _tatta-tatta-tatta_, and a revving diesel engine, and  
the scream of a motorcycle throttle. Then more _pops_ and _tattas_.  
Broadway brought the skiff to a halt in the shadow of a  
weathered pillar, exerting no small effort to keep it in place against the  
strengthening current.  
Brendan's eyes skimmed over the heiroglyphs, saw that they  
warned of a cataract ahead, and thought nothing of it as he realized the  
_pops_ and _tattas_ were gunfire.  
Now they could see the source of the commotion. A canvas-  
sided truck was in hot pursuit of a solitary motorcyclist, with two dun-  
colored jeeps bringing up the rear. A man with a machine gun leaned  
out the passenger-side window of the truck, bullets stitching haphazard  
seams all around the cycle as it swerved. Another man, distinctive with  
a short blond crewcut and a black turtleneck, was standing in the back  
of the lead jeep with a pistol.  
"What do we do?" Elektra asked, poised for action.  
"We don't know who the good guys are," Broadway said,  
frustrated. "And they've got us outgunned! I guess we wait and see."  
The motorcycle zipped up an incline that was almost too steep,  
and raced along the top of a crumbling sandstone outcrop. The truck  
picked up speed, the driver surely seeing that the outcrop first narrowed  
and then petered out to nothing. The bike was rapidly running out of  
room.  
The rider must have known it too, because the bike slowed.  
Then, as the truck pulled ahead, the rider gunned the engine and went  
up on the back wheel, then jumped the bike into the back of the truck,  
tearing through canvas.  
Moments later, after a man in dark clothes had been forcibly  
ejected from the back of the truck, the rider appeared through a rip in  
the canvas, and began clambering toward the driver's compartment.  
Beside Brendan, Broadway was humming softly.  
The truck braked, flinging the cyclist onto the hood. A hail of  
machine-gun fire blasted out the windshield, showering broken glass  
but missing the precariously-clinging cyclist, who pistoned both legs  
through the opening and kicked the machine-gunner out the passenger  
door. The cyclist then dove inside, and the truck went crazy as a  
wrestling match took place for possession of the steering wheel.  
Two of the truck's wheels bounced up on the sandstone, and  
the whole thing nearly tipped. Then it came down with a crash and a tire  
exploded -- _BANG-flappa-flappa-flappa.  
_ Now they could see the driver, slumped unconscious across the  
dashboard while the cyclist fought for control of the careening vechicle.  
The truck came around in a big loop, and headed straight toward the  
jeeps.  
The lead jeep veered out of the way, but the second jeep wasn't  
so lucky, and met the truck head-on. As they slammed together and  
burst into flames, a motorcycle erupted from the back of the truck,  
complete with rider.  
Broadway was louder now, really getting into it: "Bum-ba-  
dum-dum, bum-ba-dah, bum-ba-dum-dum, bum-ba-dah-dah-dah!"  
The motorcycle landed hard but stayed balanced, and shot  
toward the river with the remaining jeep close on its tailpipe. The blond  
man in the black turtleneck fired but missed as his car bounced and  
jolted over ruts in the earth.  
Now they got a good look at the cyclist, and gasped as one to  
see that it was a woman, grim-faced beneath the brim of her fedora.  
Just before she reached the bank, the blond man's second shot  
struck her cycle. Its rear end jerked to the side, slewed in the mud. The  
woman leaped free and rolled, all leather jacket and brown corduroys,  
with a whip coiled at her hip. She came up crouched next to the pillar,  
clutching a battered satchel to her chest, her hat still miraculously on  
her head.  
The jeep was going too fast to avoid the tumbling motorcycle  
and collided with it, turning it into a bent pretzel of metal that sailed up,  
came down, and smashed through the jeep's windshield. The driver  
spun the wheel hard to the right. Tires slid in the mud and the jeep  
toppled onto its side, spilling all the occupants.  
The woman saw the boat and jumped in, landing beside  
Brendan. "Cast this thing off!"  
"Okay," Broadway said, nonplussed, and poled them into the  
swiftening current.  
She looked at him and Elektra, did the grandaddy of all  
double-takes, and then whipped her attention back to dry land as a  
bullet tugged the collar of her jacket.  
The blond man was standing beside the wreckage of his jeep, a  
scratch leaking blood down his arrogant Nordic cheekbone, both hands  
wrapped around a gun.  
The current seized the skiff and drew it along, and now  
Brendan remembered what he'd read on the pillar. Cataract. Rapids.  
Whitewater.  
Another bullet gouged a splintery wound in the skiff's  
figurehead, turning the carved Viking head's solemn mouth into an O of  
surprise. Broadway swore and poled more vigorously.  
The blond man tried to fire again, but judging by the look on  
his face and the disgusted way he flung his pistol in the mud, he was out  
of ammo.  
The woman stepped up on one of the benches, bracing herself  
with one hand on Brendan's shoulders. She doffed her hat, letting a riot  
of chestnut hair take to the wind, and waved it at the blond man in  
mocking salute.  
Even the growing rush and tumble noise of the approaching  
cataract could not drown out his final infuriated cry as he shook his fists  
in the air. "Jooooooonnnnnes!"  
Broadway choked and almost lost hold of the pole. "No  
_way_!!!"  
There was no chance for further conversation just then,  
because the skiff dipped into the rapids, and the woman lost her footing  
on the bench. She fell into Brendan's arms, winked at him, then  
disentangled herself and dropped low to grab the sides of the boat.  
Brendan and the gargoyles followed suit, and they all held on  
for dear life as the skiff picked up speed. Water and muddy foam  
splattered over them.  
Finally the river smoothed out, and they could all sit up again.  
"Whew," the woman said, wringing out her hair and replacing  
her hat. A small scar on her chin only accentuated her striking good  
looks. "Thanks for the ride."  
"Are you one of the good guys?" Broadway demanded.  
"Are _you_?" she came back.  
"Well, yeah! So if you stole something from those other  
people, and they were just trying to get their property back --"  
"It's not their property!" she said fiercely. "The Orb of Isis  
belongs in a museum!"  
"Can I cut in for a moment?" Brendan asked, as polite as if this  
were an evening cocktail party. "Some introductions might be in order.  
Brendan Vandermere, of the Boston Vandermeres." He extended a  
hand.  
The woman regarded him for a moment, making him very  
aware of his unshaven and all-around disheveled state. Howard  
Mosswell's tweed jacket wasn't in the best shape either, and Brendan  
realized he must look quite a bit like a homeless college professor.  
"Dakota Jones," she replied, seizing his hand in a grip that  
made him struggle not to wince.  
"I'm Broadway, and this is Elektra," Broadway said. "But  
we're still trying to figure out who's side you're on."  
"Likewise." She turned her dark, frank eyes on the two of them  
and waited for an explanation. When Broadway, to his evident surprise,  
provided one, she nodded as if it made all the sense in the world.  
"Gargoyles, okay. Excuse me for saying so, but shouldn't you be  
perching on Gothic cathedrals?"  
"We are on a quest," Elektra said softly. "A magical quest that  
sends us where we need to be, where we might render aid to those in  
need."  
"Ooo-kay," Dakota said. "You did provide a handy getaway  
boat, at that. But you can just drop me off ahead at the river bend, and  
get back to your quest."  
"What about you?" Brendan asked.  
"Places to go, Mr. Vandermere. I have to get to the Orb to the  
Office of Egyptian Antiquities, for their Isis Exhibit."  
"But who were those other guys?" Broadway demanded. "Why  
do they want this orb thingie?"  
"As an energy source. They mean to use it to power a weapon.  
And I mean to keep them from doing it. If Runolf gets his hands on the  
Orb --"  
"Runolf?" Broadway cut in, with a puzzled look. "That name  
sounds familiar ..."  
"Hans Runolf." Dakota fingered the hole in the collar of her  
jacket. "Our blond friend. Leader of an outfit that calls itself the Reich  
2000, or the Nazis of the New Milennium."  
"Sounds like a video game," Brendan said.  
"Or a rock band," Broadway agreed.  
"Laugh if you want," Dakota said, "but they're dead serious.  
They want to use the Orb to activate the Anubis Device. If that happens  
..." she shuddered and shook her head.  
"The ... who what?" Broadway's puzzled look had reluctantly  
given way to one of a hope-I'm-wrong sort of understanding, and  
Elektra glanced worriedly at him before touching his arm.  
"There was an incident a few years ago. Nobody's clear on the  
details, but someone broke into a hidden chamber and found something  
that killed thousands of people in a split second. Aged them to dry  
bones. Now the Reich 2000 have it, but lucky for us all, they haven't  
been able to make it work. Yet."  
A few silent moments passed as they all contemplated this.  
Broadway still looked uncomfortable, but whatever he knew, he wasn't  
saying.  
"Where is the Anubis Device?" Brendan finally asked.  
"They moved it to the Temple of Kal-tet," Dakota replied,  
pointing to a distant flat-topped pyramid that rose from the dunes like a  
mirage. "It's remote, virtually unknown, the perfect place to test it."  
Brendan frowned. "I thought I knew my mythology, but I've  
never heard of Kal-tet."  
"I'm not surprised. She's not one of the major goddesses. Or  
even one of the minor ones, for that matter. More of a cult figure in the  
3rd dynasty. The sacrifices were considered gruesome even by the  
standards of the time. The priests put starving crocodile hatchlings in  
brass urns, then strapped the urns so that the openings were flush  
against the bellies of their victims."  
Another silent moment passed while they all contemplated  
_that_.  
Once again, Brendan broke the silence. "Is there a chance they  
can still make the Device work, even without the Orb?"  
"They're bound to try," Dakota said grimly. "Which is why I'm  
going to the temple. Someone's got to stop them."  
"So," Brendan said. "Now we know why Avalon sent us here."  
  
* *  
  
That was how, several eventful hours later, he found himself  
struggling in the grip of two of the High Priest Mar-Alom's personal  
thugs while they carried him to the carved stone altar.  
"I would rather have the woman," Mar-Alom complained, the  
leaping firelight dancing over his cruel, nearly reptilian features.  
Hans Runolf shook his head. "Miss Jones has been a thorn in  
my side for quite some time. I mean to deal with her personally."  
"Let the man go," Dakota said, tugging at the ropes that held  
her. "He's no part of this."  
"Tell me where the monsters are, and I might agree," Runolf  
offered with a cold little smile, balancing the Orb of Isis on his palm.  
"Don't tell him!" Brendan shouted, then groaned as one of the  
thugs cuffed him on the side of the head.  
All he could think of was the shallow sandstone cave where  
the gargoyles waited for dusk with no way of knowing that the  
expedition to the temple had gone drastically wrong. If the Reich found  
them ...  
"Let him go, and I'll think about it."  
"You are in no position to argue!" Runolf snapped, losing his  
patience. He turned to his men. "Bring her."  
They dragged her protesting, bound form from the room. Hans  
Runolf glanced down at Brendan, his ice-blue eyes glittering. "Perhaps  
you will change your mind, Herr Vandermere. When you feel the  
crocodiles start to writhe and bite and gnaw ... yes, perhaps you will  
reconsider."  
With that, he spun on his heel and followed his men into the  
depths of the Temple of Kal-Tet.  
Brendan pulled on the cords that held his wrists. They were  
secure. But the movement caused his arm to scrape along something,  
and he realized that the edge of the altar was chipped, jagged.  
Mar-Alom thrust a pair of tongs into a water-filled tank and  
came up with a flailing, gnashing baby crocodile. He dropped it into a  
brass urn, chuckling to himself.  
One of the thugs tore Brendan's shirt open, and the other  
dunked a brush into a jar and began smearing his stomach with a thick,  
smelly paste.  
"Fish oil," Mar-Alom explained. He put a lid on the urn, shook  
it. A ferocious storm of hissing and snapping echoed within. "Its  
favorite food."  
He began chanting in a harsh dialect of Egyptian. Brendan  
could barely understand one word in ten, but he didn't need a pocket  
translator to know that this was a prayer to Kal-Tet, offering up a  
sacrifice. Him, to be specific.  
The thugs murmured along with Mar-Alom, and Brendan took  
advantage of their distraction to rub the restraint faster against the  
broken stone. He marveled inwardly at how well he was taking all of  
this. The Brendan Vandermere of a year ago, who had a nervous  
breakdown over the loss of a car, was long-gone.  
Mar-Alom pressed the flat lid of the urn against Brendan's  
stomach, strapping it in place. With a final reverent sigh to Kal-Tet, he  
reached to slide the lid out from between the crocodile and Brendan's  
unprotected, fish-paste-smeared skin.  
The cord snapped. Brendan swung his arm, batting away Mar-  
Alom's hand just as the fingers closed on the edge of the lid. Then,  
though the angle was awkward, he delievered a neat boxing punch that  
caught the High Priest in the sternum and sent him reeling back gasping  
for air.  
Before the thugs could shake off their trance, Brendan had  
freed his other arm. Then he felt the cold, rubbery-pebbly nudge of a  
snout, and saw that his twisting and exertions had caused the lid to shift.  
He cried out in horror and fumbled at the straps.  
"Get him!" Mar-Alom ordered furiously.  
Brendan got the urn unstrapped just as the lid slid free and  
clattered on the stone floor. He shoved/hurled it from him in more  
revulsion than anything else, and certainly did not plan for it to smack  
straight into the thug who had anointed him with fish-oil. The thug  
reflexively caught the urn, and the crocodile launched itself madly out,  
sinking its teeth into the thug's oily fingers.  
That man began to scream and leap about. His first instinctive  
reaction was to slam his hand on the edge of the altar, succeeding only  
in shattering his fingerbones while the croc skittered up his arm.  
The other thug stared at this spectacle just long enough for  
Brendan to seize up one of the tall brass torchlamps and brain him with  
it. But then Mar-Alom's arm snaked around his neck and squeezed.  
Brendan uttered one strangled choke before his windpipe was  
closed off. He threw himself backward, and by blind luck stomped hard  
on Mar-Alom's foot. The two of them lunged and crashed around the  
altar, stepping over and on one unconscious thug while the other  
screeched and flailed at the determined, nearly demonic baby croc that  
had by now torn red flaps from both arms and his cheeks.  
Mar-Alom released Brendan and grabbed a ceremonial dagger.  
His first slash snagged Brendan's sleeve, shredding what was left of his  
shirt and leaving a shallow cut.  
The thug, desperate to escape the vicious teeth of the  
crocodile, blundered into the row of tanks and knocked them over.  
Gallons of water and dozens more crocs sluiced across the floor,  
instantly driven into a frenzy. They went at each other, at the thugs, at  
Mar-Alom's sandaled feet and bare legs beneath his robes.  
Brendan's shoes -- glossy black the night he'd put them on for  
his sister's party aboard his yacht, a night that seemed a hundred years  
ago now -- proved too much for their small teeth. He scrambled through  
the puddles, slipping once and catching himself with one hand against  
the floor. A croc darted in and took a piece out of his forearm before he  
could get up again.  
He fled, leaving Mar-Alom in a frantic dance of trying to  
shake loose his tiny, ravenous minions. To Brendan's left, the stairs to  
the upper chambers beckoned. Daylight, freedom, an end to the  
catacombs. To his right, the passage Hans Runolf had taken.  
He went right.  
Voices ahead alerted him and he ducked into a dark alcove as  
Dietmann, the shifty-eyed archaeologist, went by with Runolf's men.  
They were speaking to each other in hushed German, throwing wary  
glances in the direction of the altar room. The screams had dwindled,  
and doubtless the men believed them to have come from Brendan's  
throat.  
They went on, taking the stairs up. Brendan waited until they  
were out of sight and then hurried the way they had come.  
"... cliche even for you, Runolf," he heard Dakota say, and a  
huge sense of relief swept through him. "I mean, really, dangling me  
over a pit of fire ... aren't you at least going to test the Anubis Device on  
me?"  
"And let you get close to it? I think not," Runolf said. "I know  
you, Jones. I won't let you destroy my plans."  
Brendan eased into the room, finding plenty of flickering  
shadows to conceal him. The only light came from the pit, a glowing  
gaping orange mouth. Heat shimmers rippled the air.  
Dakota was suspended over the pit by her wrists from a length  
of thick rope. Though her eyes didn't so much as waver when Brendan  
came in, he knew she saw him.  
"So what now?" she asked. "You've got the Orb -- Dietmann is  
probably taking it to the Device even as we speak. You know I won't  
betray the others."  
"If the sounds of your friend's hideous death did not convince  
you, torturing you won't either. In which case, I might as well ..."  
"Tell me where the Device is, gloat about your plan, and then  
leave me to die?" she prompted helpfully.  
"You've seen too many movies, Jones, and listened to too  
many of your grandfather's stories." He drew a gun and pointed it at her.  
"I'm going to shoot you, that's all."  
Brendan tackled him just as the gun went off, the impact  
jarring Runolf's arm so that the bullet grazed the rope instead of  
blowing Dakota's head off. The two of them crashed to the floor. The  
gun sailed from Runolf's grip, and skidded to the edge of the pit. It  
teetered there, caught in the uncertain dilemma of gravity.  
Strands of rope popped and unraveled. Dakota rotated her  
wrists frantically, trying to work a hand free. Her body twisted slowly  
as the rope began unwinding.  
Brendan and Runolf both went for the gun. Their searching  
fingers found it in the same instant, and pushed it over. It plunged into  
the fiery pit, where the bullets began exploding from the heat.  
Now it was Brendan teetering on the edge, Runolf trying to  
shove him in while he in turn tried to hold on. His face felt like it was  
baking, his eyes squinted and watered. He threw Runolf off,  
unfortunately not into the pit.  
Dakota abruptly dropped two inches as more rope gave way.  
Brendan, exhausted and going on pure adrenaline, tackled  
Runolf again. They rolled into a table full of pottery, which fell and  
detonated all around them. Brendan grabbed up a wide-mouthed jar and  
brought it down on Runolf's head. The jar, thick Nile clay with several  
coats of glazing, cracked apart like eggshell. Runolf grunted in surprise  
and went limp.  
The rope snapped.  
"No!" Brendan yelled.  
Dakota lunged upward with her one free hand, catching hold  
just above the frayed end. Her hat fell off and she kicked, catching it on  
the toe of her shoe. And there she dangled, by one hand with one leg  
bent awkwardly to keep her hat from a firey doom.  
She looked around at Brendan and smiled, a weary half-insane  
little grin that perfectly mirrored the way he felt inside. "Our day's work  
isn't done yet, handsome. Dietmann's got the Orb."  
"They headed for the upper chambers." He found the lever that  
closed the pit. "Ladies first, or age before beauty?"  
"How nice to know that chivalry's not dead," she said, and  
together they raced for the stairs.  
  
* *  
  
"Now!" Klaus Dietmann cried, holding aloft the Orb of Isis in  
both hands. "Now we shall unlock the secrets and the power!"  
The Temple of Kal-Tet was a flat-topped pyramid, with a large  
brass brazier in the center flanked by huge gongs in wooden stands. A  
wide set of steps descended the side, lined with tall posts in the shape of  
serpentine alligators with blazing glass spheres gripped in their jaws.  
The steps ended at a wooden bridge that spanned a moat of oily-looking  
water.  
The men around Dietmann rolled their eyes at each other and  
muttered as his rapturous speech went on, but none of them moved from  
their posts. They stood along the sides of a gold-covered tube resting  
atop an obsidian carving of a jackal. The tube was inlaid with designs  
showing embalmers at work, and Anubis weighing the souls of the  
deceased against the Feather of Truth to see if they had earned their  
eternal reward of serving the pharaohs, or if they were to be devoured  
by the Beast.  
"Three guesses," Brendan whispered to Dakota.  
She tapped a finger against her lips playfully. "If it's not an  
espresso maker, or the telephoto lens of the ancients, it must be the  
Anubis Device. Ready to rumble?"  
He sighed. "Not really, considering they've got us  
outnumbered and outgunned. But what the hell." He glanced hopefully  
at the reddening sky, but the sun was still too far above the horizon for  
them to count on a timely rescue.  
Dakota unclipped her whip and shook it out.  
Dietmann moved to the end of the device, where two copper  
prongs waited to hold the Orb. The device itself was pointed toward a  
small village in the shadow of the pyramid, where the Reich had  
recruited their laborers and now evidently meant to repay them with  
ageing and death.  
"Shall we wait for Runolf?" one of the men asked.  
The man's question went unanswered. The final six inches of  
the whip coiled around Dietmann's wrist.  
Dakota yanked. The Orb fell, bounced off the barrel of the  
Anubis Device -- here Dakota and Dietmann both winced in horror --  
spanged sideways, rebounded off a gong, smote one man in the  
forehead, and rolled to a stop at Brendan's feet.  
He scooped it up, noticing with dismay that the silver surface  
was marred by several cracks. But there wasn't time to inspect the  
damage, because Dietmann, shaking with rage, shouted, "Get them!"  
Dakota elbowed one of them, wrested his gun away, and shot  
another in the shoulder just as he was about to ventilate Brendan.  
Hans Runolf, bruised and furious, erupted onto the scene with  
a machine gun. Below, a large truck skidded to a halt at the foot of the  
stairs and more soldiers of the Reich spilled out.  
"And you thought we were outgunned before!" Dakota yelled  
at Brendan, and squeezed off another shot. This one didn't even come  
close to striking any of the men, but severed a chain holding one of the  
gongs upright. It swayed, the remaining chain snapped, and the gong  
banged noisily down.  
She looked at him. A bullet whined between them, not  
dimming the go-to-hell wild light in her eyes. "Into the garbage chute,  
handsome!"  
"You've got to be kidding!" Brendan hollered, but jumped into  
the concave suface of the gong anyway, just as Runolf's machine gun  
made gravel out of the stones he'd been standing on.  
Dakota returned fire, then, as her ammo ran out, hurled the gun  
-- breaking Dietmann's nose, lucky shot! -- and leaped into the gong.  
Her weight and momentum pushed it over the edge, and the next thing  
Brendan knew, they were sliding down the side of the pyramid like kids  
in a snow disk, the brass against stone making the most ungodly  
screeching and showering sparks all around.  
"We'll never clear the moat!"  
"Probably not," she replied, adding, "especially now!" as some  
of the men from the truck realized what was going on and one clever  
fellow threw a lit match onto the thick oily coating. Flames shot up  
eagerly, racing around the bottom of the pyramid. "We've got our frying  
pan; there's the fire!"  
"Ha, ha!" he retorted, scanning for an escape route, but there  
was none. Even if they bailed out, nothing was going to stop them from  
rolling into the burning moat under their own power.  
Defying all laws of physics, Dakota stood up and kept her  
balance in the careening, skidding, jolting gong. "Grab on!"  
"To what?" he demanded incredulously.  
She looped her arm around his waist, readied her whip.  
"You are nuts, woman," he opined, but held tight to both her  
and the orb.  
"Kiss for luck?" she teased, but there wasn't time. The wall of  
fire was fast approaching. She drew back her arm, let it fly, the whip  
snaked out in a blur, and wrapped snugly around a tall statue of Kal-Tet  
at the edge of the moat.  
The whip pulled taut and yanked them out of the gong.  
Relieved of their weight, it hit the edge of the moat and took to the air,  
flying through the flames like a giant Frisbee and plowing into the  
waiting soldiers. Brendan and Dakota, her face a rictus of strain and his  
a gape of shock, swung around in a tight tetherball circle and slammed  
into Kal-Tet's unforgiving, reptilian graven image.  
A grating, shifting noise came from the base of the statue and  
it swiveled, revealing a square dark pit.  
"_There's_ the garbage chute," Brendan gasped, clinging to the  
merciless goddess while Dakota shook her whip free.  
"What are you waiting for? In we go!" She dropped past him  
feet-first, and after a split-second's reflection that he had to be as crazy  
as she was, Brendan followed.  
The statue rotated back, sealing them in darkness.  
  
* *  
  
"Damn, am I going to pay for this tomorrow," Dakota panted,  
flicking on a pocket flashlight and rubbing her arms. "This has been a  
busy day even by my standards!"  
"At least it didn't drop us in a crocodile pit," Brendan said,  
looking around. "It's a passage, and if memory serves, it leads away  
from the pyramid. Under the moat!"  
"Then let's get moving before they come after us."  
With only her light to guide them, they started to run as fast as  
they were able with their various aches and pains.  
"No point creeping along looking for tripwires," Dakota said.  
"Not with the Reich on our heels! If there is a trap, and we're lucky, it'll  
kill us straightaway."  
"That's one way to look at it."  
They ran for what felt like a mile, and then the passage ended  
in a sand-gritted staircase leading up. The top was blocked by a flat  
door, but it gave way easily enough when Brendan threw his shoulder  
against it.  
They burst up into the middle of a corrugated-tin hangar,  
whose open doors showed trucks, jeeps, and stacks of crates all marked  
with the same symbol.  
"Oh, no!" Dakota groaned. "The Reich's motor pool! This is  
where I _started_!"  
"Can you fly a -- why am I even bothering to ask?" Brendan  
laughed and pulled her toward a sporty red and white Cessna.  
"Actually, I can't," she said with a shamefaced smile. "I hate  
flying."  
"Lucky for you, _I_ can!" He didn't tell her, as they scrambled  
into the plane, that his lessons had been twelve years ago and his license  
long-since expired.  
  
* *  
  
"You call that a landing?" Broadway asked, staring at the  
smoking remains of the Cessna.  
"Any one you can walk away from ..." Brendan groaned.  
"_Can_ you walk?" Elektra said pointedly.  
"Sure." He shook off Broadway's supporting arm, took three  
steps, and fell in the dust.  
Dakota staggered away from Elektra and collapsed beside him.  
"For what it's worth, you did great! Would have done even better if they  
hadn't tagged us with that rocket."  
He reached into the remains of his shirt and withdrew the Orb  
of Isis. As he handed it to Dakota, it slipped from his fingers and  
thunked weakly to the sand. The cracks he had previously noticed now  
widened and the Orb unfolded.  
All four of them stared at it as two golden winged figures and a  
cylinder covered with tiny bumps rose from the heart of the Orb. The  
cylinder began to turn, the wings of the figures hugging its sides. A thin,  
lovely melody drifted up.  
"A music box?" Dakota gasped. "All that ... for a music box?"  
  
* *   
  
Her warm smile that made Boston and Margot seem more that  
half a world away. "It's been fun, handsome. Thanks for everything!"  
"Anytime," he said.  
"It may be just a music box, but the Orb will still be great for  
the Isis Exhibit. And the important thing is we kept the Reich from  
getting it."  
"As long as you're going to the Antiquities Board in Cairo,"  
Brendan said, digging in a duffel bag, "how about seeing if they'd like  
to add this to the tour?"  
Her eyes widened as she took the artifact. It was a glazed clay  
pyramid topped with a disk of beaten gold in the shape of a sun. "This  
is ... where did you get it?"  
"What, that old thing?" Brendan grinned. "Just something we  
had hanging around. I was going to keep it as a souvenir, but I'd rather  
see it in a museum where it belongs."  
"I can't take this!" She tried to hand it back, but he folded her  
hands around it.  
"I insist."  
"If you insist." She tucked it into her satchel alongside the Orb  
of Isis. "But that leaves you without a souvenir. Here." She shrugged  
out of her leather jacket. "This was my grandfather's."  
"Dakota, I can't take this!" The well-worn leather was butter-  
soft, scuffed and creased with the grit of a hundred ancient and  
mysterious sites.  
"I insist," she mimicked.  
"Well ... if you insist." He slipped it on, and it fit as if he'd  
owned it for years. "I did need a jacket; the Kal-Tet people ruined  
mine."  
A backfire made them all jump, but it was only the plane, a  
plane that looked nearly as old as the Sphinx. Its propellor started,  
stopped, and then grudgingly spun into a choppy blur.  
"My flight," Dakota said.  
Brendan nodded. "I'd better say goodbye, then, before I feel  
compelled to start quoting Bogart at you."  
She tipped her hat to Broadway and Elektra, shouldered her  
satchel. "Thanks again!"  
"Good journey," Elektra replied.  
"Say hi to your grandpa for me," Broadway added, grinning  
hugely."I never would have guessed those movies were based on a real  
guy!"  
She winked, then headed for the plane.  
Brendan watched her go, then called, "Dakota, wait!" and  
hurried after her as she turned around.  
"Forget something?"  
"Yes." He plucked off her hat, tipped her face up. "You're the  
most exotic and exciting woman I've ever met in my life, and I'd be  
crazy not to at least try this once." With that, he kissed her.  
Her first reaction was surprise, then a response that left him  
breathless. When they parted, her eyes were twinkling. "See you  
around, handsome!"  
Then she was up the rickety stairs and into the plane. One final  
wave, the door closed, and she was gone.  
"Wow," Broadway said. He looked at Brendan, impressed.  
"Wish I had the nerve to do something like that!"  
Elektra, oblivious of how his gaze shifted yearningly to her,  
sighed dreamily. "So romantic!"  
"Yeah," Brendan said, waving as the plane began lumbering  
down what passed for the runway. "Too bad I'm married." He stuffed  
his hands in the pockets of the jacket and watched as the plane  
dwindled into the sky  
  
* *  
  
EPILOGUE:  
Close-up of Puck, still in khaki and pith helmet. Something  
silvery is blurring over his head. Camera pulls back to show him tossing  
a silver ball from hand to hand.  
"Looks like Runolf and Mar-Alom found out their plan wasn't  
all it was croc-ed up to be!" he chortles. "But Brendan urned his keep  
and didn't leave Dakota hanging!"  
Puck breaks into song. "There's Anubisness like show  
business, like Anubisness I know ..." breaks off, tilts head as if he heard  
voices raised in protest. "What, tomb much of a good thing? All right,  
kiddies! Orb be seeing you next time, for more Tales from the Skiff!"  
  
* * * * * * *   


* * *

  
PART TWO -- INTRODUCTION:  
Slow pan across gold coins, strings of pearls, other treasure  
spilling from a wooden chest. Brittle bony fingers clutch the side; the  
camera glides up a skeletal arm to a leering skull in an eyepatch and a  
black bandanna.  
A pair of fingers slips stealthily up behind the skull, making a  
V and waggling like antennae. This is followed by an impish face, as  
Puck peers over the skeleton's shoulder.  
"Ahoy, mateys!" he cries merrily. "Don't worry about my  
friend here ... his barque is worse than his bite!"  
He floats up, revealing himself to be clad in ragged-cuffed  
black trousers, a white-and-red-striped shirt, matching socks, and black  
shoes with big buckles. "Like it?" he asks, gesturing to his clothes. "I  
was going to get a gold hoop too, but the place I went charged a  
buccaneer!"  
A dusty green parrot squawks indignantly, and Puck grins. "So  
avast ye and prepare to be boarded, for a tale that I call ... Crossbones."  
  
* *  
  
"Well, it's not Manhattan, and it's not Hawaii. Other than that,  
I can't see much," Brendan said as the mist began to clear.  
They were closer to the harbor now, which was mostly  
enclosed by a curving breakwater of heaped, barnacle-encrusted stones.  
A giant arch appeared to be the only way in, and as they neared it, they  
saw the lettering.  
"Cutlass Cove," Broadway read, rather dubiously.  
The words were flanked by a skull-and-crossbones at one end  
and a picture of a treasure chest at the other, and the C's in Cutlass and  
Cove were formed from curved swords -- cutlasses.  
A banner was suspended beneath the archway, flapping in the  
mellow breeze. As it belled toward them, sail-like, they read what was  
written there.  
"Grand Opening Week," Elektra said, even more dubiously  
than Broadway. "April 12-18. What's today?"  
Brendan consulted his watch. "The 11th, I think."  
They poled the skiff up to the dock, threading between a  
variety of ships ... recreations of sailing vessels from long ago. Off to  
one side, the harbor was partitioned off and ringed with bleachers, and  
the half-dozen ships there seemed poised for battle.  
Broadway thumped himself agreeably in the brow. "It's a  
resort or something! Like they have at that hotel in Vegas!"  
Now they were close enough to make out details of the  
buildings that hugged the coast -- a Hollywood-style recreation of an  
early 18th-century pirate town.  
"Why don't you two go have a look around," Brendan  
suggested as they found a place to tie the skiff. "I'll see if I can find a  
phone. Or a map, to figure out where we are."  
"Milady?" Broadway held out a hand.  
"Gracious sir." She accepted it, and led him toward the  
Corsair's Museum.  
An unlatched skylight let them into the museum, which was  
filled with watchful silence as well as exhibits of seafarers, explorers,  
armadas, and, of course, pirates.  
Broadway explored one room full of cinematic swashbuckler  
memorabelia, then moved to the next. He first saw only woodcuts and  
glass cases full of rusted tools and cracked leather-bound ship's logs,  
and then his eye was caught by something so startling that the air was  
driven out of him in a grunt.  
Elektra made an inquisitive noise, and Broadway pointed.  
"That portrait ... I know that guy!"  
She leaned closer to read the informative card. "Captain  
Findleagh Moray, known as the Scottish Rogue."  
"It's MacBeth!"  
She kept reading. "From the years 1697 to 1721, this believed-  
to-be-nobleman harried and hunted pirates throughout the Carribean. In  
1722, he was named governor of St. Gilbert, also known as Dead Man's  
Cove, an island near Tortuga and Hispaniola."  
"Wow," Broadway said. "We always did wonder what he did  
with his time. A pirate hunter!" He grinned, studying the old image of  
MacBeth in boots and breeches and a big hat, with a sword in hand. "If  
I could get a postcard of _that_ to send home ...!"  
He wandered off in search of the gift shop, but none of the  
postcards had what he was looking for. He selected one anyway, fishing  
some change out of his pouch and leaving it on the counter. On his way  
back, he heard Elektra's excited call.  
"Broadway! Oh, do come and see!"  
He found her in a large hall displaying parts of ships. She was  
standing in front of a platform, seperated from the walkway by a velvet  
rope, studying with fascination a set of five carved figureheads.  
There was something about them ... Broadway pondered a  
minute, then got it. All of them had wings. He grinned. "Cool!"  
The most impressive of them was an image of Death. Great  
sweeping black raven's wings, a body somehow skeletal yet strong, a  
cadaverous face with hellish pits for eyes, a scythe gripped in bony  
fingers.  
Next to that one was a winged mermaid, her lower body a  
sinuous scaled fishtail, with wings eerily similar to Broadway's own.  
The next was a robed man with hooves for feet, wings of fire,  
and a blazing sword. After that was a smaller figure with a hunched  
back ridged with spines, fanlike wings half-extended. The last was a  
mishmash of animal heads, a lion and a goat and a snake, all sharing the  
same stubby-winged body.  
"Broadway ..." Elektra whispered. "I sense magic here!"  
"Hunh? What do you mean?"  
She closed her eyes and spread her fingers, ivory beauty  
caught in a moonbeam from the skylight. "Yes, magic! A spell on these  
five ..." she gasped and her eyes flew open. "They are gargoyles!  
Sleeping gargoyles!"  
He goggled, first at her and then at each of the five figures in  
turn. "But they're wood!"  
"A seagoing race of our kind, protecting ships as others protect  
castles!" She clapped her hands, excited, delighted. "It is true,  
Broadway, I know it in my heart to be true! Behold, here!"  
She tugged him to a table which held a model of a massive  
galleon. The same scythe-bearing figure was at the prow, while dozens  
of other winged statues were posed the length of the ship on either side,  
flanking the gunports. They looked like ordinary wood, like carved  
decorations, but ...  
"I bet you're right!" he said, catching her excitement. "This  
ship, this ..." He peered at the name on the hull, and started to laugh.  
"It's the Wyvern!"  
"Their castle of the waves!"  
"And they're under a spell, like we were? Then we've got to  
find the way to break it!"  
"Ah!" Elektra tapped the glass of a nearby case. "A torn  
parchment, inscribed with words in Latin!"  
"What does it say?"  
"It is woefully incomplete, but for the last lines." She  
translated. "Locked in sleep as painted wood, until the seas boil."  
Broadway nodded. "Yup. Always a condition. Castle above  
the clouds, sky burning ... boiling seas fits right in." He rubbed his head  
glumly. "But I don't know how we're going to manage it."  
  
* *  
  
"A phone, a phone, my kingdom for a phone," Brendan  
muttered to himself. But, determined to keep the ersatz pirate  
atmosphere as genuine as possible, whoever designed this place had  
managed to hide all the modern conveniences well.  
Footsteps on cobblestones caught his attention, and he ducked  
into the doorway of the Pieces of Eight Tavern, trying to think of his  
explanation should the security guards discover him.  
"... sorry my plane got in so late," a man said, his voice deep  
and rich and accented.  
"We're just all so pleased you could come!" a woman gushed.  
"Meeting you in person, after all those calls and letters ... I feel as if I  
know you already! And having an actual descendant of the Scottish  
Rogue here to launch the recreation of the Lady MacBeth is more than  
the board could have hoped for!"  
"I see you changed the name of the town," he replied,  
bemused. "I imagine Dead Man's Cove wouldn't be the best draw for  
the tourists."  
They came around a corner into a pool of moonlight. The  
woman was of the leggy model variety, with honey-colored curls and  
warm blue eyes.  
The man was tall and broad-shouldered. The oddest thing was,  
Brendan could have sworn he recognized that face, that crop of silver  
hair. A name danced tantalizingly close, tip-of-the-tongue, he was going  
to kick himself when he finally got it.  
He got it. He kicked himself. How could he not know that  
man? Margot's talk-show nemesis, Birdie's favorite teacher.  
The woman stopped and swept a hand in an expansive gesture  
encompassing the harbor. "Tomorrow, at dusk, we'll hold the first  
performance of the battle. It's all mechanized but the sailors. Actors.  
The fight between the Scottish Rogue and the fleet of the pirate lord  
Emil Santiago."  
"The one that led to him being named governor of this island,"  
Lennox MacDuff said, and now his bemused look faded, to be replaced  
by one more somber. "Only one other battle was ever fought here  
during his rule. My ... ancestor's ... wife was slain." He gazed out over  
the water, lost in thought. Finally, he shook it off and forced a smile.  
"Thank you for showing me around, Miss Carstairs."  
"My pleasure, Mr. MacDuff." She leaned toward him in a  
posture of invitation. "And please, call me Lynne!"  
MacDuff regarded her for a long, speculative moment, then his  
smile became more genuine. "Lynne it is."  
  
* *  
  
"So let me see if I've got this right," Brendan said, rubbing his  
temples and wishing for an aspirin. "The man I saw isn't really the  
descendant of this pirate hunter at all."  
Broadway shook his head. "Nope. He _is_ the pirate hunter."  
"Why do I have the feeling tomorrow's going to be an  
interesting night?"  
  
* *  
  
Dusk of the next day -- the island had changed a lot in a few  
short hours. Flashbulbs popped, videocameras whirred. "Yer picture  
with a wench," one sign proclaimed. Red and yellow wagons selling a  
spicy sausage stew roamed the village. And the formerly empty  
bleachers were overflowing with people in vacation clothes and period  
garb.  
Brendan now found it easy to mingle with the crowd. There  
were too many other things to look at to pay any mind to one scruffy  
ex-yuppie. Broadway and Elektra perched on a rooftop overlooking the  
harbor.  
The six ships moved smoothly on their tracks, cannons  
belching smoke while splashes burst from the water. Sailors and pirates,  
all in costume, clambered on the rigging, waving cutlasses and muskets.  
They feigned their deaths with screams and occasional plunges into the  
waves.  
"There he is," Broadway said, pointing. "The one laughing his  
head off."  
The Lady MacBeth came about, preparing to launch a volley  
of cannonballs. The man portraying the Rogue shouted orders to his  
crew. His performance was cut short as the ship shuddered to a halt in a  
cacophony of mechanical grinding and sproinging. Half its crew was  
hurled overboard with clearly unrehearsed cries of surprise.  
The other five ships, the pirate fleet, suffered the same sudden  
fate. Men plunked into the harbor and came up, sputtering and annoyed.  
Smoke and steam began billowing from the docks, where a  
facade of sheds housed the machinery.  
"The compressor's blown," a workman yelled, in a tone of  
more disgust and resignation than alarm. "Going to turn the whole  
goddam harbor into a Jacuzzi!"  
Elektra's hand closed over Broadway's wrist. "Until the sea  
boils!" she breathed.  
They looked at each other, as bubbles rose in the harbor,  
making the waves into a roiling froth.  
"Come on!" Broadway pulled her to her feet, and they dove  
from their perch.  
  
* *  
  
They reached the room where the figureheads were kept, and  
saw that all five stood unchanged. Broadway's shoulders slumped in  
disappointment.  
"I was really hoping we could tell Goliath we found a new  
clan," he said. "Not counting the Squids."  
Elektra sighed and put her arms around him consolingly. He  
stroked her hair, which whispered like silk beneath his hands, and in  
that moment he wouldn't have cared if they were the only two gargoyles  
in the world. In fact, he might have preferred it. No Jericho. No  
competition.  
A splintery crack echoed through the quiet chamber.  
They gasped and turned as thin fault lines grew over the  
surface of the figureheads with a sound like kindling breaking.  
Broadway held Elektra more tightly.  
The figures moved, flexed, stretched. Chips, shavings, and  
sawdust sifted down in a fine rain. Now flesh and blood, they looked  
down at themselves, then incredulously at each other.  
"We're awake!" the largest one cried in a resonant baritone.  
"We're alive!" He swept the clan to him in a laughing embrace. Now it  
was clear that he wasn't skeletal, but his skin had unusual patterns of  
dark and light that made it seem as if the bones were revealed.  
"Reaper! My love!" The bare-breasted female, her muscular  
tail holding her upright, threw herself into his arms and folded her  
wings forward to enclose him.  
"Melusine! My angel of the deep!"  
The smallest gargoyle, a hatchling of no more than ten years of  
age, capered around them until the male called Reaper swung him into  
the air.  
"Patience, Imp! Let your parents greet each other!"  
The strange watchdog stiffened, sniffed, and turned his many  
pairs of eyes toward Broadway and Elektra with a menacing growl.  
"Save your greetings," the robed one advised the rest.  
"Chimera sees we are not alone." He took a step forward, the sword in  
his hand a jet of fire.  
"Brand, wait," Reaper commanded. "Hear what they have to  
say first."  
"We are friends," Elektra said. She spread her wings.  
"Gargoyles, like you."  
"Where are we?" Melusine asked in wonder, gazing about.  
"How long have we slept?"  
"Uh ... well, it's 1999," Broadway said.  
"Nearly three hundred years?" Reaper strode forward while the  
rest of his clan gaped in shock and disbelief. "You lie!"  
"No, I don't," Broadway replied earnestly. "Hey, it's not so  
bad. _My_ clan was put to sleep for a thousand years!"  
Brand, shedding light but not heat from his blazing wings,  
clomped to the window on his split hooves. His face contorted with  
fury. "Humans! Everywhere, a plague of humans! And ships, but  
mockeries of ships! They've made a playacting of our world, a jest of  
our suffering!"  
"It's just a theme park --" Broadway said.  
"Silence!" Reaper ordered. He turned to Brand, his voice  
softening dangerously. "There are humans here?"  
"Throngs of them."  
"What quarrel have you with the humans?" Elektra asked  
worriedly.  
"What quarrel?!" Reaper whirled on her, making her take an  
involuntary step back. "The captain we served betrayed us, let our  
enemies destroy our clan!"  
"Sounds familiar," Broadway said. "That's what happened  
to --"  
"Destroyed our clan!" Melusine echoed. "Reaper and Brand  
had gone to chase our foes across the waves, and got caught by the  
dawn too far to glide back! Imp and Chimera had played pranks on the  
crew, and so I took them to the rookery hold for the day! While we  
slept there, ships came and cut our clan to pieces!"  
"How came you to be frozen in wood for three hundred years  
by a magic spell?" Elektra asked.  
"That's a long story," MacBeth said, entering the hall with a  
grim expression.  
  
* *  
  
"You!" Reaper snarled. "This time, you _will_ die!"  
"I doubt it," MacBeth sighed, "but we can hope, can't we?"  
"_You_ put the spell on them?" Broadway blurted. "Sure, that  
makes sense! You must've had it in for gargoyles ever since Demona,  
but you're too noble to kill them --"  
"Noble!" Brand's sword sliced through the air. "He hunted us  
like animals!"  
"You attacked my town! Killed my wife!" MacBeth shot back.  
"Stole our lives from us!" Melusine screeched. "Not death, but  
strange waking in a world not our own! Now we have no clan, no ship,  
no future! And you, Rogue, will pay!"  
"Wait! Stop!" Broadway shouted. "That's all in the past now!  
Let it go! Yeah, okay, this isn't the world you remember. But you can  
adjust. My clan did!"  
"To the Devil with you and your clan!" Reaper hefted his  
scythe, the blade glinting wickedly sharp. "Stand away from him, or  
share his fate!"  
"This isn't how it was supposed to be!" Broadway protested.  
"You've lost so much already!" Elektra said. "Oughtn't you be  
thankful for what you have, and make the best of it?"  
Brand looked her over, his lip curling. "Pretty thing, aren't  
you? Our clan will need more females. Are you mated?"  
Elektra went pale, and Broadway stepped to her side. "Yes,"  
he said, putting an arm around her. "She's mine."  
"Leave them out of this," MacBeth said. "You're not going to  
harm any humans, and you're not going to resume your pirates' ways. I  
stopped you before, and I can do so again."  
"Can you?" Reaper sneered. He smashed glass and picked up a  
scrap of parchment. "Here's all that remains of your spell. Brand?"  
Brand's flaming sword turned it to char in a heartbeat. "First  
the spell, then the spellweaver, and then every louse-ridden human on  
this island! We'll claim it for our own, and soon the seas shall be ours  
again!" He lunged at MacBeth, and the fight was on.  
"Sorry," Broadway hastily apologized to Elektra. "I didn't like  
the way he was looking at you, and if he thought you didn't have a  
mate ..."  
She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, my dear  
friend. Thank you."  
"Anytime," he said, more seriously than he meant to. He  
blushed, then said, "Uh, we better help MacBeth!"  
  
* *  
  
Just as Brendan reached the doors to the museum, they flew  
outward and Broadway came tumbling down the steps like a big blue  
bowling ball.  
Several people screamed, and then did so again and louder  
when a skeletal figure shrouded in black glided out with a scythe  
sweeping in front of him. Brendan felt his spine try to jump completely  
out of his body in fright, then realized it was one of the gargoyles  
Broadway and Elektra had told him about.  
Broadway sprang to his feet and seized a bench, hurling it at  
the black-winged figure. It drove him into the wall of the museum,  
stunning him.  
"I take it things didn't go well?" Brendan inquired politely, as  
the rest of the crowd surged the other way.  
"You could say that," Broadway said, as his foe sheared the  
bench in half with his scythe and stalked toward them.  
"Reaper! Let me have him!" Another gargoyle, this one  
making Brendan think of some Old Testament vengeful angel with his  
blazing sword and wings of fire -- except that angels weren't usually  
depicted with a mashed nose and a swelling black eye -- swooped out of  
the museum. "I owe him for _this_!"  
"That's only a sample of what you'll get if you ever touch  
Elektra again!" Broadway bellowed, puffing to what seemed like twice  
his normal size.  
  
* *  
  
"Usually, in situations like these," MacBeth said, "the females  
square off against each other for a catfight of ferocious nature. I,  
however, have no such compunctions when it comes to dealing with  
hellish she-gargs." With that, he kicked Melusine in the stomach and  
then tackled her tail before she could pummel him with it a second time.  
Elektra flung Chimera off and got unsteadily to her feet. The  
beast's claws had shredded her dress, which had already been torn from  
neckline to waist by Brand's rudeness, but modesty was the least of her  
worries at the moment.  
She dodged Chimera as he charged at her, all heads snapping  
furiously, saliva dripping from his teeth. He ran straight into a section  
of the mast of Sir Francis Drake's ship, and wandered in a dazed circle.  
Imp jumped on her back, a small but wiry bundle of snarling  
muscle. His tiny claws burrowed for her throat.  
She caught hold of him and held him before her, and in her  
sternest tone reprimanded him, "That was a _very bad_ thing to do!"  
Then she turned him over her knee and administered one sharp spank to  
his haunches.  
Imp froze, then looked up at her with huge reproachful eyes  
welling with tears. They overflowed and he began to wail.  
"Oh, little one --" she began, awash with remorse.  
Melusine, enraged, flung MacBeth the length of the room. He  
landed amid the smashed wreckage of the model of the Wyvern with a  
groan.  
"She hit me, Mama!" Imp sobbed.  
Elektra saw Melusine coming straight at her, low to the floor,  
using her arms to pull and her powerful tail to propel herself. Her eyes  
glowed hot turquoise, and she slammed into Elektra with the force of a  
torpedo.  
  
* *  
  
When someone swings a scythe at you, Brendan would later  
reflect, the first impulse is to jump back.  
Lucky for him, he was able to ignore that impulse and do just  
the opposite. He went forward, so that the wooden haft instead of the  
metal blade struck him hard enough to send him headlong down the  
museum stairs, with a throbbing pain where his ribs should be.  
He rolled, taking a moment to be grateful he hadn't been sliced  
in two.  
The Reaper moved in for the kill. Behind him, Broadway and  
the other one had left a path of destruction through the gift shop and  
snack bar.  
"Cowering human! I'd tell you to think twice next time, before  
attacking a gargoyle," Reaper said. "But you won't have a next time!"  
The crowd had miraculously vanished, fleeing to all points of  
the compass when they realized the events at the museum were not part  
of the entertainment.  
The scythe hovered for a moment, mirroring the sky-hung  
crescent of the moon.  
The cowering human decided it was time to play dirty, and  
lashed out with both feet. No sooner did he feel them connect -- and  
what a shot, since Reaper had been standing in a wide stance -- than he  
rolled again, down the stairs, suppressing a howl as his ribs bumped and  
banged.  
He felt the whisper of a blade at his elbow, shaving off a  
quarter-inch of leather from the jacket Dakota had given him in Egypt,  
and then steel clanged on the steps. The jolt jarred the weapon from  
Reaper's hands, or maybe he dropped it in his pain. Didn't matter to  
Brendan. He grabbed it up quick, staggered because it was even heavier  
than he'd expected, and pushed it into the cobbled street.  
Reaper straightened up, and now his eyes were a cold corpse-  
white.  
Though he knew it ranked pretty high on the all-time list of  
stupid things he'd ever done, Brendan grinned and said, "I'd tell you to  
think twice next time, before gloating at a cowering human ..."  
Reaper's bellow drowned out the rest of it, then was cut off  
suddenly as the other gargoyle thumped into him and they both went  
down. The other was unconscious, his wings now drab brown and  
lightless, and Broadway brushed his hands together briskly.  
  
* *  
  
"Melusine!" MacBeth called out.  
The female had Elektra's throat in a tight grip, and Elektra was  
beginning to see large silent blossoms of blackness before her eyes. She  
pried weakly at Melusine's fingers, to no avail.  
Chimera roared/bleated/hissed warningly, and Melusine  
looked toward MacBeth. He held something aloft, a scrap of  
parchment.  
"The other spell may have been destroyed, but _this_ one will  
not be so merciful as sleep!"  
She tossed Elektra aside as if she was a large cloth doll and  
screeched so piercingly that the remaining glass cases shattered.  
MacBeth winced at the sound, but made ready to read.  
The first words of Latin fell from his lips.  
Imp wailed again, this time in terror, and scampered to his  
mother. She curled one arm around him and lunged for the narrow  
window. She dragged herself and her child through the opening and  
onto the veranda that overlooked the sea. Chimera followed, flapping  
his stubby wings to lift himself through.  
Elektra raised herself enough to see them go over the railing  
and plunge into the sea. She sagged limply down.  
MacBeth was at her side, gallantly covering her with his coat.  
"Are you all right?"  
She tried to answer, coughed, and sank into the grey.  
  
* *  
  
Broadway raced and Brendan limped in, and when Broadway  
saw Elektra so pale and still, he loosed an anguished roar the likes of  
which he himself hadn't heard since that fateful night in the castle, a  
thousand years ago.  
MacBeth looked up, cradling her head. "She's going to be fine,  
with the dawn."  
Broadway fell to his knees. "But dawn's so far away!"  
"We should get her out of here," Brendan said. "Before the  
other gargoyles come back for a rematch."  
"They'll not be coming back tonight," MacBeth said, rising. He  
pointed to a ship moving slowly from the harbor. Even from here, they  
could see Melusine at the helm, and the other winged shapes gliding  
over the waves to meet it.  
Elektra moaned and opened her eyes, and Broadway leaned  
worriedly over her.  
"And you were so eager to find a new clan," she whispered.  
He mumbled something, shamefaced, but stopped when he felt  
her light touch on his cheek, saw her smile, realized she was only  
teasing.  
She tried to sit up, but MacBeth's coat fell away and revealed  
her gown in tatters. Broadway gasped and looked away as Elektra  
modestly clutched the coat around herself, blushing a faint rose-pink.  
"They're gone now," he said, clearing his throat. "They've got  
a ship, and they're gone."  
"For now," Brendan added, glancing at MacBeth. "A clan of  
bloodthirsty pirate gargoyles, though ... that's going to play havoc with  
the Carribean cruise lines."  
"Would you have me explain to the authorities?" MacBeth  
grinned wryly. "And where should I begin?"  
A soft step alerted them, and they all turned to see a tall  
woman with honey-colored hair and dark blue eyes.  
"You can begin by explaining to me, Lennox," Lynne Carstairs  
said, staring at Broadway and Elektra. "After what I've seen tonight, I'm  
inclined to believe anything."  
  
* *  
  
EPILOGUE:  
Extreme close-up of one giant eye, blurred and strange, in a  
ring of brass. Camera pans back to show Puck, now wearing a plumed  
hat and a garish captain's coat with gold embroidery all around the  
sleeves, peering through a telescope.  
He lowers it, winks. "I was going to end our tale with another  
ghastly pun, but ... well ... Carribean there, Carridone that."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
THE END 


End file.
